Life Worth Living Curriculum Design Competition Announcement

Michael LoStracco of William Penn Charter School in Philadelphia, PA is the first prize-winner of the 2024 Life Worth Living Secondary School Curriculum Design Competition. Held for the first time during summer 2024 by the Yale Center for Faith & Culture, the Life Worth Living Secondary School Curriculum Design Competition invites secondary school educators to submit a curricular plan designed around the book Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most by Miroslav Volf, Matthew Croasmun, and Ryan McAnnally-Linz.

Yale Center for Faith & Culture

The Secret of the Kingdom

As students in "Education and the Life Worth Living" encounter the Parable of the Sower for the first time, they are asked: what can we learn about Jesus’ philosophy of education from this passage? The answer, it seems, lies in something like office hours.

Matthew Croasmun

Why Read?

Nobody reads anymore ... or so they say. As technology continues to shadow the practice of reading in our daily lives, we might ask: why is reading important? And why should it matter to our lives? Drew Collins responds to the recent Papal letter by Pope Francis on literature and the practice of reading in spiritual formation.

Drew Collins

Does God Get Angry?

The medieval English theologian Julian of Norwich understands God's anger as impossible: God can rejoice over us and pity us. God can even thank us. But God cannot be angry with us. Willie James Jennings, on the other hand, suggests that God experiences anger connected to God's righteous indignation; an anger born out of desire to re-order a broken world. What might you make of the stakes of what we believe about God and anger?

Ryan McAnnally-Linz

The Joy of Humility

The true meaning of humility persistently drives debate, largely because we cannot agree on the word’s definition. The "correctness" of normative terms matters, and humility carries a distinctive normative weight. How we understand humility is not a matter of mere semantics. It is a pursuit of inquiry with the potential to inform—perhaps even to transform—our lives. The Joy of Humility takes up this task with a view toward the perennial question of what entails a truly flourishing life. Here, philosophers, theologians, ethicists, and psychologists work to frame the debate in such a way that the conversation can move forward.

Drew Collins

The End of Youth Ministry?

What is youth ministry actually for? And does it have a future? Andrew Root weaves together an innovative first-person fictional narrative to diagnose the challenges facing the church today and to offer a new vision for youth ministry in the 21st century.

Andrew Root

Exclusion and Embrace

If the healing word of the Gospel is to be heard today, Christian theology must find ways of speaking that address the hatred of the other. Is there any hope of embracing our enemies? Of opening the door to reconciliation?

Miroslav Volf

Always On

Angela Gorrell

Pursuit of a Life Worth Living

“What we’re trying to do is offer students an opportunity to think critically about the most important question of their lives across important and enduring lines of difference. That can only be good for them as individuals and as global citizens.”

Matthew Croasmun

Gathering Joy

Willie Jennings

The Future of Theology

George Marsden

Life Worth Living and the University

Jonathan Holloway